Coxsackie B virus infections in women with miscarriage.

To study the possible role of Coxsackie B virus serotypes 1-5 (CBV 1-5) as an etiological factor in miscarriage, 97 women with miscarriage were tested for the presence of CBV-IgM by radioimmunoassays (RIAs) and compared with 113 control women undergoing voluntary interruption of pregnancy in the same gestational week. Of the 80 women with miscarriage before the 13th week of gestation, 34 (42%) had CBV-IgM, whereas 18 of 100 (18%) corresponding control women had these antibodies, a statistically significant difference (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in CBV-IgM frequency between the women with miscarriage from the 13th through the 27th week and their controls. IgM against CBV 2 predominated, followed by IgM against CBV 5, CBV 4, CBV 3, and CBV 1. Two strains of CBV 5 were used in the RIAs, one (M147) isolated from a woman with miscarriage included in the study and one (V136) isolated in 1971 from a patient with meningitis. When the former strain was used, 13 women with miscarriage and seven control women had IgM, but with use of V136 only two women in each group were IgM positive. CBV 5 was isolated from the placental tissue from more women with miscarriage (6 of 28; 21%), than control women (2 of 21; 10%), but the difference was not statistically significant. No other viruses, except cytomegalovirus from a woman with miscarriage, were isolated.